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Interview with Scott Coolbaugh

Interview with Scott Coolbaugh

THE MODERATOR: We have Scott, Mike's brother, and his two sons, Joey, the oldest, and Jake. We have a microphone for questions.

Can you a little bit about the support of the Rockies organization throughout all this and what it's meant to your family?

SCOTT COOLBAUGH: I can't say enough about the Rocky organization. They've been tremendous through the whole ordeal, nothing but supportive to my brother's wife, Mandy, and the two boys. Can't say enough -- they've taken them in as a family in a short period of time and that's very unusual and I can't thank them enough, especially Major League Baseball, also, with a lot of the tributes that they've put on the Internet, Minor League Baseball, the league that I was involved in, the Texas League and the president, Tom Kaiser and the GM in Tulsa was really a wonderful human being and getting things started with a memorial fund, and Chuck Lamson. I can't say enough about the organization.

How did you guys hear about what they did and when did you hear about it? What was the chronology?

THE MODERATOR: He's talking about the players and the share.

SCOTT COOLBAUGH: I've been in the Hawaiian winter league, coaching down there. Bill told me about it. Again, another great gesture by the players. My brother was well respected by the players, a lot of the guys that he had played with have donated money from the Brewers, Jeff Jenkins and Burke and stuff like that, not only the Rockies organization who I can't say enough about but other plays in the major leagues that have contributed to the fund and we can't say enough.

Scott, I don't know if your family believes in these sorts of things, I know Mike wasn't in the organization very long, really, but we've been sitting here scratching our heads trying to figure out how the Rockies have been able to get on this run that they have at the end of the season. Does the family think anything about helping hands from above or anything like that?

SCOTT COOLBAUGH: You can't say enough. I think even in their Double-A team in Tulsa who made a huge run at the end of the year and made the playoffs and it's filtered from the top to the bottom in their organization. Hopefully they'll go a long ways, make it to the World Series and win a championship here. They're on their way with a two-game lead and hopefully tonight they'll take the series.

Even though we're players and coaches, we're still human beings and I think the Rockies took that into account with my brother. He was a human being, he did whatever he could to help the organization and they gave back to that.

When your brother got the job with the Tulsa Drillers this year, how excited was he to have that opportunity to get into coaching? Do you think that was what he wanted to do for the rest of his life?

SCOTT COOLBAUGH: Baseball has always been our lives. Since the time I've been eight years old we've tried to get as far as we could into the game. Sometimes it doesn't work out for all of us but he and I both made it to the major leagues as players and it got to a time in our careers where we had to make a transition and Marc Gustafson offered him the position at Tulsa, and he was excited about it and I think it showed early on, the players responded to some of the things that he had to offer and I think he would have been a really good coach. He started to fill into that role awful quickly.

Courtesy of FastScripts by ASAP Sports. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.